


Convalescence

by SegaBarrett



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Lazy/Gentle Sex, M/M, Neediness to Please, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:19:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Rick helps Daryl recover.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gaialux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Walking Dead, and I make no money from this. 
> 
> Thank you to my beta, Chaosprincess! :)

“Daryl?”

Daryl didn’t know if he was dreaming the voice, or if someone was really calling him.

He had never been much of a sleeper, after all – not at home, when he was growing up, not with Merle and his father always about ready to get into a fist fight any second of the day. Not now, not with danger brushing up against his shoulder and whispering in his ear. 

His eyes opened, slowly, and he saw shadows first. Always shadows.

And a song, brushing up against his neck and creeping into his brain, never letting him go. A death rattle tune. 

“Daryl?” he heard again. 

He let out a long, strangled yawn. His ribs hurt; everything hurt. The sunlight hurt his eyes and he had to squint to focus them.

He saw Rick. That was a comfort – Rick had a kind of safety about him that Daryl didn’t want to try to describe, because it would never fit into words.

Daryl had never been good with words, anyway. Not like Rick. 

He opened his mouth again to try and speak. How had he gotten here? When had he even gotten here?

“Don’t try to talk, Daryl. Just rest now.”

He realized then that he was lying in a bed – a soft one. It wasn’t the hard cell of the Savior’s compound, and there wasn’t music blaring in his ears on repeat to keep him awake.

And Rick was here. 

He wanted to talk; he wanted to say a lot of things, hell, needed to say them.

But all he could do was take Rick’s advice, lay his head back down again, and sleep.

***

When he awoke, the first thing he felt was warm water against his toes. 

“Just relax, Daryl. It’ll be all right.”

Rick’s voice was low and lilting all at once. 

His fingers were calloused, but gentle. Rick was… was… a contradiction, and the word stuck in Daryl’s mind as he managed to bring it up. Everything was stuck there, sometimes – a lot of images he couldn’t shake and a lot of things that rubbed up against each other until they were going to burst into flames.

Along with each and every time Rick Grimes had touched him. Not touched, in the way that Daryl wished it meant, but touched, brushed against, bumped into, pushed out of the way.

Every time he had saved Daryl’s life and had his saved in return. 

Daryl looked around to try and get his bearings – he was in a bed, and his feet were dipped in a pail of water. Rick was washing him, tending to him.

He didn’t have much time to think about it further before he fell back asleep.

***

It was about the time that Daryl was able to keep awake for longer than ten minutes at a time – it must have been days, or maybe weeks – that he began to dream about Rick every time he fell back asleep.

Rick was being so careful, and gentle. But Daryl’s dreams were not gentle sorts of dreams. 

In his dreams, Rick had his hands all over him; he was rough and wild and biting.

And Daryl loved it and feared it all at once.

He woke up hard and gasping and wet all over.

***

It was a few weeks before Daryl got up the nerve to reach out and touch Rick. If he’d done it before, it just would have been desperate. Hell, it still felt desperate, as he leaned in, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips against Rick’s. Breathed into Rick’s, pressed his body up close against him so he could feel that Rick was just as hard. 

Part of Daryl wanted to stop; part of him wanted to hide and try to forget… try to forget a lot of things that he could never forget. Just like he could never forget what his father had done, or the way Merle had gone out, or any of the other flights of death that had fallen around him in a constant rut of misery.

But he did not want to forget the way that Rick felt in that moment, and that kept him going. He wanted to show Rick just how grateful he was, just how much he couldn’t stop himself from gravitating to the heat. 

And so he pulled himself into a sitting position on the bed he’d been in for (who knows how long, don’t think about that) and pulled himself closer to where Rick was standing watch over him, had been for (who knows how long, how much time has passed…)

And he slipped his hand into Rick’s pants and hoped that neither of them would speak. There weren’t words; there was only what must be done, what had to be done.

He had never done this before. He’d touched himself, of course, but that was different – almost mechanical in a way, animalistic, like it was something he needed to do just like he needed to spit sometimes to clear his throat or cough or scratch his head.  
This was something so much deeper.

Daryl looked up at Rick, slowly meeting his eyes. Maybe this wasn’t what he wanted? Maybe he had gotten it all wrong. 

But then he heard Rick let out a low moan, almost like a purr. 

“Daryl…?” he began, “You need rest… Maybe you shouldn’t be…”

But Daryl fought against the doubts – he had no doubt about this, about wanting to do this; only worried that it wouldn’t be good enough, wouldn’t come in time – in time for what, now?

Daryl didn’t answer the question, didn’t want to.

He unbuttoned Rick’s pants and, in one quick motion, unleashed his cock. His hand fumbled around it, and he must have blushed – blushed! Him… It was a funny thought… a funny sight, probably. His cheeks felt hot and he was sure he was sweating. He had never done this before – with someone else’s, that was.  
It was awkward and slippery when it wasn’t your own, he mused.

He looked up in his grip to meet Rick’s eyes. The other man nodded with a small, tired smile. Like he was settling in for the night and this was something comfortable and good and normal.

When did Daryl become part of home, no longer peeking in store windows for things he couldn’t have and hoping people wouldn’t run away if he looked at them too long? 

Daryl stroked again, letting his fingers dance to the head of Rick’s cock and stroke against the tip gently. He wanted Rick to always feel safe, to always feel good. To find warmth and comfort the way he had cared for Daryl. He didn’t know the words to use, to ever say that.

And so he stroked harder, wanting to use each finger to trace the words, maybe to express some kind of pleasure in the touch. Daryl wasn’t good with words, never was. But he had always been good with his hands.

And maybe, he thought with a sudden smile, he could be good with his mouth, too.

He breathed in, first, then shuffled back a little to get himself in a better position. He tried to ignore the ache that burned across his shoulders, his chest, and his chin. 

But Rick didn’t; the other man reached out and began to brush his hands against everywhere that Daryl hurt. He didn’t know how he could know every single place, but somehow he did.

Maybe Rick Grimes was magic. 

He wanted to show him how much this was true.

Daryl opened his mouth and took the tip of Rick’s cock inside, suckling like he was going after a tootsie roll pop and wanted to count how many licks he could manage.

Rick’s hands slid up and into Daryl’s hair as he let out a low gasp. How did Rick even manage to moan with that raspy voice? Maybe it was something deep inside him, something in his core. Daryl didn’t know; he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything.

Maybe if he got to the center… 

He let a hand lazily move up and grip around Rick’s base. He moved back just enough to give his wrist room to pump. It all seemed outside of himself, somehow, but in a warm way. Like he had been wrapped in a cocoon of Rick.

Like he would be kept safe from now on. But he needed to keep Rick safe, too. 

He squeezed and gave a careful, slow stroke. 

“Daryl…” Rick whispered. “This is so good… Are you… okay to…?”

Daryl slid his lips off and used the breath to tell him, “Better than okay…”

“Are you sure…?” Rick’s voice wasn’t worried, or self-conscious, just filled with the low drawl of concern that came out for Daryl in particular, that understanding that Daryl was not one to speak up about his own needs unless prompted (if and only if, maybe not even then).

Daryl leaned in to press their lips together, not wanting this to stop (what would it mean if it stopped? What would they have to turn back to? The world couldn’t stay on pause forever, there were things that needed to be done, scores that needed to be settled, and… he would need to shut all that off). Rick tasted something like pine bark, rough and textured and woodsy and perfect.

They paused, gasping.

“You need more recovery time?” Rick asked him again, hooking an arm around his back and drawing him in. “A better bed, more pillows, a…?”

“I need,” Daryl leaned in to nibble and suck along Rick’s neck, “A bow… and I need you to string it.” He bit down slowly on Rick’s neck, hoping he would leave a mark. He wanted everyone to know… maybe Daryl wasn’t always the one to shout about how much Rick meant, but he would show it in other ways. He needed to show it.

Needed him.

Rick chuckled and climbed on to the bed, kicking off his shoes and shedding his pants and boxers for good, at last.

“I’ll string your bow,” he promised, and reached down to spread Daryl’s legs apart; it was somehow rough and gentle all at the same time, and Daryl let out a low gasp, something grilling in his throat and simmering.

Rick’s hands were all over him, then; gripping his cock and stroking along the side; running his hands through his hair and kissing at his forehead; rubbing their groins together until Daryl was so hard he wasn’t sure he could keep from cumming if he tried.

But he wanted to try, needed to, because Rick hadn’t yet, and there he was still taking care of Daryl and not worrying about himself and something about that just didn’t seem fair at all.

And then Rick moved his hand down to wrap around both of their cocks at once, squeezing and stroking almost desperately, almost but not quite rough. 

“You’re a rock in the road,” Rick whispered in his ear, “I’m the one who’s gonna dig you out.”

Daryl had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t have time to think much about it, either. He could hear his pulse thumping in his brain, or maybe it was his heart. Everything was on fire for Rick and it was all headed straight downward, a pressure building until he wanted to cry rather than let it go.

“Cum for me, Daryl Dixon.”

Those were the words that let him. It was as if he was shooting the last – who knew how many weeks, months… maybe it had been years – out through him, cleansing himself and tossing the memories and nightmares away. Clearing his head and letting Rick sing into it, letting him paint him a picture and use him as the brush.

Daryl did cry, then, wet and sticky and with Rick collapsed on top of him, his arms intertwined and his eyes shut tight.

He’d dream of Rick, tonight. That much he knew.


End file.
